1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control apparatus for a fuel cell vehicle and a control method for a fuel cell vehicle.
Priority is claimed on Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-196186, filed Jul. 5, 2005, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of Related Art
There is conventionally known a control apparatus that performs traction control to suppress slippage of drive wheels due to excessive driving force being applied from the tires to the road surface in a vehicle equipped with a fuel cell and an electrical storage apparatus as a power supply for the vehicle traction motor (refer, for example, to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, First Publication No. 2001-204107). This control apparatus restricts the electrical power supplied from the fuel cell to the vehicle traction motor by restricting the fuel supplied to the fuel cell, whereby the output of the vehicle traction motor is restricted to increase the grip force of the drive wheels.
In the control apparatus according to the aforementioned prior art, after an appropriate control command is input with respect to the supply state (i.e., pressure, flow rate, etc.) of the fuel containing a fluid substance in a gas or liquid state supplied to the fuel cell, the time, i.e., response delay, until reaching the control state in accordance with this control command becomes relatively long.
For this reason, from the moment slippage of the drive wheels is detected, the time required for output of the vehicle traction motor to be actually restricted for the grip of the drive wheels to increase is lengthened, leading to difficulty in executing traction control with suitable timing.
Moreover, when the output of the vehicle traction motor rapidly increases, such as when the tires slip on a road surface with a relatively low frictional resistance due to freezing or the like, there is the risk of electrical power exceeding a specified upper limit power from the fuel cell and an electrical storage apparatus during the time from the detection of the output surge to restricting the electrical power supplied to the traction motor by restricting the supply state of fuel to the fuel cell. This gives rise to the risk of being unable to suitably protect the fuel cell and the electrical storage apparatus.